Our Weekend: Freezing For A Reason

Friday saw the end of Winter camp and the start of a four day weekend, which is always welcome. And this weekend was particularly packed with friends and fun things to do.

On Saturday Nick and I headed to the beach early to take part in the Freezin' For A Reason January dip in the ocean for charity. I was umming and aarring about whether to do it or not, and at the last minute decided that I couldn't let Nick do it on his own. I won't be doing that again in too much of a hurry.






Saturday night was our last night out all together before Tash and I leave for our 3 week holiday in England and sadly Grace and Anna head off for greener pastures. To celebrate, or commiserate, we headed to KSU.

The next day was the final of the tennis, so we spent the night at Beached showing Murray our support. Sadly, us staring fixedly at the screen failed to help him, so we played darts instead.

Monday I became one of the guys and joined them on a walk up the mountain with Ziggy, on the way back down we treated ourselves to some goat, which is amazing.

And finally today, feeling like it's about time that I prepared myself to finish off this last week and a half that's left of school, I decided to relax. We went for breakfast at the coffee shop down the road and then spent the afternoon lazing in Spaland.

Amongst all of this, I also managed to watch Silver Linings Playbook, which I absolutely adored.

Now it's time to prepare for our last few days at school until March!

Our Weekend: Busan Sand Festival

Another awesome weekend spent relaxing in Busan.  It was lovely for the ROKD ladies to be down here, lots of sunbathing and soju induced fun made me almost forget I was missing the Jubilee back in the UK. What I wouldn't do for a cream tea right now...

Some of the lovely ROKD ladies

Dongnae skate track 

The metro ride where we were asked if we were stars by a
group of Korean boys,

Grafitti on the beach 

The most impressive sandcastle I've ever seen

Loving the blankets at Thursday Burger.

Haeundae Beach at night

Will it ever get old shouting Wingardium Leviosa
every time I have a firework in my hand?

Our weekend

You know when you wake up wearing a glow stick that's lost its glow and ears full of sand that you had a good night the night before.

We managed to cram alot in again this weekend. Street food in Nampo along with drinks with friends, a hike to  Seokbulsa temple, a BBQ,  a masquerade party on Songjeong beach and topped it all off with some camera shopping and Gossip Girl on Sunday night.

Seokbulsa temple was well worth the hike. It took us a couple of hours as we repeatedly lost our way as we were working from two different sets of instructions. If anyone wants to try it, my instructions are below. It was slightly disheartening to see once we'd risked life and limb down steep rocky roads (which made you hum the Indiana Jones theme tune) that there was a smooth tarmac road leading straight to the temple. Yet when we got there, for a short, peaceful while we were the only people there and it was amazing.

These will be the last pictures courtesy of Natasha's camera, on Sunday morning when we went to look at the pictures from the previous night, it made an ugly crunching noise. Evidently the sand we've been finding everywhere in our apartment also made its way into her camera too. Sad times. R.I.P camera, you've helped us to record many happy memories so far.

Mmmm Floppy Prawn

Loves that it's polite in Korea to get others to pour you a drink

Ridiculously cheap beer that comes in awesome vases

A baby beer vase and the most incredible soju cocktail. Psst,
see the hole in the table? If you pop your drink in there it keeps it icy cold.

Pretty proud of ourselves that we managed to drink it all

On the way to Geumjeong mountain , this is the wrong entrance

Cable car ride up Geumjeong mountain

Hiking to Seokbulsa temple

Being over taken by ajummas on the way to the temple

Giving ourselves a breather near a waterfall.

The hike was obviously not enough exercise, so I decided to give
the exercise park that's half way up the mountain a go.

Trying not to collapse after the steep hill.

The temple's bell.

The shrine to Buddha at Seokbulsa temple.

Wall carvings at Seokbulsa temple

Hitting the soju at the BBQ.

Masquerade bonfire party at Songjeong beach

Sparklers and fireworks at Songjeong beach.

How to get to Seokbulsa temple:

-Get yourself to Oncheongjang which is on the orange line, exit 3. 

-Go over the road by the bridge on your right hand side, which leads you into Homeplus.

-Best instructions ever; once across the bridge just head for the mountain! Once you start getting a bit closer there are directions to Geumjeong park. 

-We walked past a big map that showed the entrance to the park to be on the left hand side. We ambled into what I think was another temple that had a really colourful entrance gateway (the picture is above with me stood underneath it) carry on heading this way, until you see another footbridge and car park. This leads you straight into the park.

-Head towards the cable cars, these are through the amusement park. You should see all the rides and a massive dinosaur statue.

-Tickets were 7,000 won for a return fare.

- From the cable cars you need to head to the South Entrance of the fortress that's also on the mountain. Basically, we can't read enough Hangeul to know when we got to the South Gate. But the first time we noticed a sign post that was only pointing to every other gate, we veered off the path to the left and followed the signs for Nam moon Village.

-Keep heading down the hill (the road forks off but we stayed on the left hand side).

-Eventually you'll come to  Nam moon village. It's obvious that it's the village as there are lots of restaurants and volleyball courts (they really are obsessed here!).

-Take the path on the left just as you reach the volleyball court.

-Keep walking, past more volleyball courts, you'll eventually go over a wooden bridge.

-Soon it becomes really rocky and was pretty hard to manouvre down, these rocks turn into perilous steps, which then turn into steps that are a bit more civilized.

- At the bottom of the steps there's a waterfall, and if you just follow the path down on the right hand side of the stream, you'll eventually come to the tarmac road.

-Turn right onto the road and enjoy the steep climb all the way up to the temple!